This document applies in particular to ArchLinux on an HP Pavilion ze5600 laptop. It may also apply to the entire ze5600 series on any modern Linux system (using at least kernel 2.6.39), and dependent upon what BIOS your system has.

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This document applies in particular to ArchLinux on my HP Pavilion ze5615CA laptop. It also applies to the entire ze5600 series on any modern Linux system (using at least kernel 2.6.39). Feel free to contact me if any problems or suggestions (lagagnon at gmail.com) (English or Spanish).

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Feel free to contact me if any problems or suggestions (lagagnon at gmail.com) (English or Spanish).

Three of the upper multimedia keys, fn+f12, wireless off switch at front right of laptop, audio switches at right front side of laptop.

Three of the upper multimedia keys, fn+f12, wireless off switch at front right of laptop, audio switches at right front side of laptop.

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==Not Yet Tested==

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==Not Tested==

PCMCIA port, Modem.

PCMCIA port, Modem.

Line 42:

Line 41:

==Configurations==

==Configurations==

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'''Video:''' The older ATI chip in this laptop requires the xf86-video-ati "radeon" open-source driver. Apparently the latest "catalyst" drivers from ATI do not work with this chip. The radeon driver however, is fine.

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<b>Wireless:</b> The older Broadcom wireless chip in this laptop requires the <b>b43legacy</b> module to function properly. Also, you must specifically follow the instructions on how to install the firmware - this is explained here: [[Broadcom wireless]] , in the "b43legacy" section of that wiki entry.

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<b>Video:</b> The older ATI IGP 330M video chip in this laptop requires the xf86-video-ati "radeon" open-source driver. Apparently the latest "catalyst" drivers from ATI do not work with this chip, but I have not tested this. The radeon driver, however, works well, but runs a bit hot (see below).

<b>Kernel boot parameters:</b> It <i>might</i> make some difference to your power consumption if you add the following kernel parameters to the "kernel" of your boot config file (for those using grub this is /boot/grub/menu.lst):

<b>Kernel boot parameters:</b> It <i>might</i> make some difference to your power consumption if you add the following kernel parameters to the "kernel" of your boot config file (for those using grub this is /boot/grub/menu.lst):

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<code>acpi_enforce_resources=lax pcie_aspm=force</code>

<code>acpi_enforce_resources=lax pcie_aspm=force</code>

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<b>Suspend/Hibernate:</b> The "pm-suspend" and "pm-hibernate" scripts from the [[pm-utils]] package work well but you need to bind keys to access these scripts because fn+f12 has no scancode.

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<b>Wireless:</b> The older Broadcom wireless chip in this laptop requires the <b>b43legacy</b> module to function properly. Also, you must specifically follow the instructions on how to install the firmware - this is explained here: [[Broadcom wireless]] , in the "b43legacy" section of that wiki entry.

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<b>Suspend/Hibernate:</b> The "pm-suspend" and "pm-hibernate" scripts from the [[pm-utils]] package work just fine but you need to bind keys to access these scripts because fn+f12 has no scancode.

<b>Function Keys:</b> Only two of the upper keyboard silver multimedia keys have scancodes. For information on how to bind keycodes please read [[Extra Keyboard Keys]].

<b>Function Keys:</b> Only two of the upper keyboard silver multimedia keys have scancodes. For information on how to bind keycodes please read [[Extra Keyboard Keys]].

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<b>Audio:</b> Should just work. Read the "alsactl" man page to find out how to store alsamixer settings between reboots.

to get the CPU temperature. Using ArchLinux with kernel 2.6.39 I find that the laptop runs quite hot. It starts at about 32degC and then continues to climb to 50deg C, with the fan on past 40degC, even at idle, with less than 2% CPU activity. I have attempted many energy saving tools as per [[Laptop]] but to little avail. The laptop consumes about 25 watts at idle with the screen on at about mid brightness. I suspect some of the heat may be generated by the video chip as I have heard that the "radeon" module can run the video chip hotter than necessary. I have been unable to get energy saving features of this video chip activated as per https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ati#With_KMS_enabled . As I have never run any other operating system on this laptop, I would be interested to hear if other owners have success in dropping the power usage and temperature level of this laptop.

to get the CPU temperature. Using ArchLinux with kernel 2.6.39 I find that the laptop runs quite hot. It starts at about 32degC and then continues to climb to 50deg C, with the fan on past 40degC, even at idle, with less than 2% CPU activity. I have attempted many energy saving tools as per [[Laptop]] but to little avail. The laptop consumes about 25 watts at idle with the screen on at about mid brightness. I suspect some of the heat may be generated by the video chip as I have heard that the "radeon" module can run the video chip hotter than necessary. I have been unable to get energy saving features of this video chip activated as per https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ati#With_KMS_enabled . As I have never run any other operating system on this laptop, I would be interested to hear if other owners have success in dropping the power usage and temperature level of this laptop.

==Considerations==

==Considerations==

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This laptop is by present standards mediocre hardware. Out of the box it has only 446MB RAM available. It is suggested you stay away from the Gnome or KDE desktop environments as you will then constantly be using your swap partition. I use the Fluxbox window manager. My ArchLinux system boots from cold button press to a ready desktop in just 38 seconds, including a SLiM graphical login page. It shuts down in about 8 seconds and resumes from suspend in about 2 seconds. Immediately after desktop ready and with one urxvt terminal open it has used just 47MB, excluding buffers and cache! The Opera browser launches from cold within 4 seconds. I have seen very modern laptops running Windows 7 perform much worse than this. Have fun with it...

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This laptop is now older hardware. Out of the box it has only 446MB RAM available. It is suggested you do not install the Gnome or KDE desktop environments as you will then constantly be using your swap partition and you can therefore expect sluggishness. I use the Fluxbox window manager. My ArchLinux system boots from cold button press to a ready desktop in just 35 seconds, including a SLiM graphical login page. It shuts down in about 7 seconds and resumes from suspend in about 2 seconds. Immediately after desktop ready and with one urxvt terminal open it has used just 47MB, excluding buffers and cache! The Opera browser launches from cold within 9 seconds. I have seen very modern laptops running Windows 7 perform much worse than this. Have fun with it, it is still an incredibly usable laptop with the right operating system and window manager installed.

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Also, many owners have commented how annoying all those bright blue multimedia key LED lights are as they are located immediately beneath the screen. I have placed black electrical tape over them and then with a razor knife cut around the tape to form the tape to the grill edges. It now looks as if those silly lights were never there and reading the screen is much easier on the eyes!

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Also, many owners have commented how annoying all those bright blue LED lights are as they are located immediately beneath the screen. I have placed black electrical tape over them and then with a razor knife cut around the tape to form the tape to the grill edges. It now looks as if those silly lights were never there and reading the screen is much easier on the eyes!

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The leftmost upper multimedia key can be used as an on/off switch and a resume from suspend/hibernate key. This is useful because the default on/off button for this laptop is poorly designed and often fails or requires significant pressure to work properly.

==Upgrading your BIOS==

==Upgrading your BIOS==

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The BIOS upgrade download at the HP support website is a Windows only executable file and is designed to create bootable floppies. This is about as useless as tits on a bull because this laptop has no floppy drive (yes, it is really hard to understand the stupidity of HP sometimes)! To get it to flash under Linux you need to:

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It is possible that a BIOS upgrade may fix some of the missing key scancodes and missing hardware control function as listed above. But probably not ;-). Nonetheless if you wish to upgrade your BIOS this is how to do it in Linux. The BIOS upgrade download at the HP support website ( http://tinyurl.com/629wd38 ) is a Windows only executable file and is designed to create bootable floppies. This is about as useless as tits on a bull because this laptop has no floppy drive! To get it to flash under Linux you need to:

<ol>

<ol>

<li>Run the Windows BIOS upgrade file as an executable under a MS Windows operating system

<li>Run the Windows BIOS upgrade file as an executable under a MS Windows operating system

<li>Rather than inserting a floppy use Windows Explorer to navigate to the directory where the extracted image file (rom.img) was stored.

<li>Rather than inserting a floppy use Windows Explorer to navigate to the directory where the extracted image file (rom.img) was stored.

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<li>Copy the rom.img file to a USB thumb drive and then copy the file from the drive into your Linux system

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<li>Copy the rom.img file to a USB thumb drive and then copy that file from the thumb drive into your Linux system

This procedure should be foolproof yet did not work for me. The Phlash software started up but hangs at reading the .bin file. I suspect that it balks at reading data from USB. Someone needs to test this with an external floppy drive device and see if a BIOS flash upgrade really does work on this laptop. Please let me know if you are successful with either method and I will include further details here.

This procedure should be foolproof yet did not work for me. The Phlash software started up but hangs at reading the .bin file. I suspect that it balks at reading data from USB. Someone needs to test this with an external floppy drive device and see if a BIOS flash upgrade really does work on this laptop. Please let me know if you are successful with either method and I will include further details here.

Revision as of 04:16, 15 July 2011

This document applies in particular to ArchLinux on my HP Pavilion ze5615CA laptop. It also applies to the entire ze5600 series on any modern Linux system (using at least kernel 2.6.39). Feel free to contact me if any problems or suggestions (lagagnon at gmail.com) (English or Spanish).

What Works With Configuration?

What Does Not Work?

Three of the upper multimedia keys, fn+f12, wireless off switch at front right of laptop, audio switches at right front side of laptop.

Not Tested

PCMCIA port, Modem.

Configurations

Wireless: The older Broadcom wireless chip in this laptop requires the b43legacy module to function properly. Also, you must specifically follow the instructions on how to install the firmware - this is explained here: Broadcom wireless , in the "b43legacy" section of that wiki entry.

Video: The older ATI IGP 330M video chip in this laptop requires the xf86-video-ati "radeon" open-source driver. Apparently the latest "catalyst" drivers from ATI do not work with this chip, but I have not tested this. The radeon driver, however, works well, but runs a bit hot (see below).

Kernel boot parameters: It might make some difference to your power consumption if you add the following kernel parameters to the "kernel" of your boot config file (for those using grub this is /boot/grub/menu.lst):

acpi_enforce_resources=lax pcie_aspm=force

Suspend/Hibernate: The "pm-suspend" and "pm-hibernate" scripts from the pm-utils package work well but you need to bind keys to access these scripts because fn+f12 has no scancode.

Function Keys: Only two of the upper keyboard silver multimedia keys have scancodes. For information on how to bind keycodes please read Extra Keyboard Keys.

to get the CPU temperature. Using ArchLinux with kernel 2.6.39 I find that the laptop runs quite hot. It starts at about 32degC and then continues to climb to 50deg C, with the fan on past 40degC, even at idle, with less than 2% CPU activity. I have attempted many energy saving tools as per Laptop but to little avail. The laptop consumes about 25 watts at idle with the screen on at about mid brightness. I suspect some of the heat may be generated by the video chip as I have heard that the "radeon" module can run the video chip hotter than necessary. I have been unable to get energy saving features of this video chip activated as per https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ati#With_KMS_enabled . As I have never run any other operating system on this laptop, I would be interested to hear if other owners have success in dropping the power usage and temperature level of this laptop.

Considerations

This laptop is now older hardware. Out of the box it has only 446MB RAM available. It is suggested you do not install the Gnome or KDE desktop environments as you will then constantly be using your swap partition and you can therefore expect sluggishness. I use the Fluxbox window manager. My ArchLinux system boots from cold button press to a ready desktop in just 35 seconds, including a SLiM graphical login page. It shuts down in about 7 seconds and resumes from suspend in about 2 seconds. Immediately after desktop ready and with one urxvt terminal open it has used just 47MB, excluding buffers and cache! The Opera browser launches from cold within 9 seconds. I have seen very modern laptops running Windows 7 perform much worse than this. Have fun with it, it is still an incredibly usable laptop with the right operating system and window manager installed.

Also, many owners have commented how annoying all those bright blue multimedia key LED lights are as they are located immediately beneath the screen. I have placed black electrical tape over them and then with a razor knife cut around the tape to form the tape to the grill edges. It now looks as if those silly lights were never there and reading the screen is much easier on the eyes!

The leftmost upper multimedia key can be used as an on/off switch and a resume from suspend/hibernate key. This is useful because the default on/off button for this laptop is poorly designed and often fails or requires significant pressure to work properly.

Upgrading your BIOS

It is possible that a BIOS upgrade may fix some of the missing key scancodes and missing hardware control function as listed above. But probably not ;-). Nonetheless if you wish to upgrade your BIOS this is how to do it in Linux. The BIOS upgrade download at the HP support website ( http://tinyurl.com/629wd38 ) is a Windows only executable file and is designed to create bootable floppies. This is about as useless as tits on a bull because this laptop has no floppy drive! To get it to flash under Linux you need to:

Run the Windows BIOS upgrade file as an executable under a MS Windows operating system

Rather than inserting a floppy use Windows Explorer to navigate to the directory where the extracted image file (rom.img) was stored.

Copy the rom.img file to a USB thumb drive and then copy that file from the thumb drive into your Linux system

This procedure should be foolproof yet did not work for me. The Phlash software started up but hangs at reading the .bin file. I suspect that it balks at reading data from USB. Someone needs to test this with an external floppy drive device and see if a BIOS flash upgrade really does work on this laptop. Please let me know if you are successful with either method and I will include further details here.